J.M. Coetzee is the only African on the list

The 2016 Man Booker Prize longlist is here finally and South African J.M. Coetzee is the only African on the list.

The Nobel Laureate made the longlist with The Schooldays of Jesus,  sequel to his 2013 novel The Childhood of Jesus, following the same characters.

J.M. Coetzee, has won the Man Booker Prize twice before, once in 1983 for his novel Life & Times of Michael K and again in 1999 with the novel Disgrace.

Aside from Coetzee, other well known writers  on the list include Deborah Levy, AL Kennedy and Elizabeth Strout. The list also includes four debut novels: Hystopia by David Means, The Many by Wyl Menmuir, Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh and Work Like Any Other by Virginia Reeves.

In total, 13 novels make the list. Six are by women and seven by men, with five American writers, six British, one Canadian and one South African.

The chair of judges, Amanda Foreman, called it “a very exciting year”. She added: “The range of books is broad and the quality extremely high. Each novel provoked intense discussion and, at times, passionate debate, challenging our expectations of what a novel is and can be.

“From the historical to the contemporary, the satirical to the polemical, the novels in this list come from both established writers and new voices. The writing is uniformly fresh, energetic and important. It is a longlist to be relished.”

See the 2016 longlist:

Paul Beatty (US) – The Sellout

J.M. Coetzee (South African-Australian) – The Schooldays of Jesus

A.L. Kennedy (UK) – Serious Sweet

Deborah Levy (UK) – Hot Milk

Graeme Macrae Burnet (UK) – His Bloody Project

Ian McGuire (UK) – The North Water

David Means (US) – Hystopia

Wyl Menmuir (UK) – The Many

Ottessa Moshfegh (US) – Eileen

Virginia Reeves (US) – Work Like Any Other

Elizabeth Strout (US) – My Name Is Lucy Barton

David Szalay (Canada-UK) – All That Man Is

Madeleine Thien (Canada) – Do Not Say We Have Nothing

Judges for the prize this year are Foreman, Jon Day, Abdulrazak Gurnah, David Harsent and Olivia Williams.

The shortlist of six books will be announced Sept. 13 and the winner will be announced Oct. 25. Shortlisted authors will each receive £2,500 and the winner will get an additional £50,000.

The Man Booker Prize was established in 1969. Last year, Nigeria's Chigozie Obioma was shortlisted for the award but Marlon James took the prize home.

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